Parents of students who attend Rutherford County Schools (RCS) must agree not to monitor their child’s online classroom sessions.
Officials at all county schools are asking parents to sign forms agreeing not to watch these virtual classes.
The Tennessee Star received a copy of such a form this week.
“RCS strives to present these opportunities in a secure format that protects student privacy to the greatest extent possible, however because these meetings will occur virtually RCS is limited in its ability to fully control certain factors such as non-student observers that may be present in the home of a student participating in the virtual meeting,” according to the form.
“RCS strongly discourages non student observation of online meetings due to the potential of confidential information about a student being revealed.”
The form asks parents for their signature and warns that “violation of this agreement may result in RCS removing my child from the virtual meeting.”
RCS spokesman James Evans addressed the matter in an email to The Star this week.
“We are aware of the concern that has been raised about this distance-learning letter that was sent to parents. The intent was not to prevent parents from being involved with their children during distance learning, but it was intended to protect the academic privacy of other students in the classroom who are visible during certain virtual class sessions,” Evans said.
“We have issued new guidance to principals that parents can assist their children during virtual group lessons with permission of the instructor but should refrain from sharing or recording any information about other students in the classroom.”
Evans did not elaborate.
As reported Friday, 50 miles away, Maury County Mayor Andy Ogles said “NO!!!” to Gov. Bill Lee’s Big Brother-style child wellbeing program that plans to send government officials to families’ homes to do welfare checks of children.
The Tennessee Department of Education says it released a toolkit on child wellbeing checks to ensure the needs of children are being met during and after extended periods away from school. It is promoted as protecting children.
The department earmarked $1 million in COVID-19 funds to set up regional overseers to work with districts, which are encouraged to apply. A grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will give funding for eight regional staff members to work across the state.
– – –
Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
Big brother’s watching you [ and your kids ]. But, I also have a gut feeling its not just all that, but too, don’t watch what we’re putting out for the kids to see and learn…which could be anything and perhaps immoral.
Perhaps some concern that the public might pickup on how much socialist indoctrination is in the course material?
This would make me, as a parent, VERY suspicious. What is the school trying to hide from us? Are they, in fact, trying to teach the children the ‘alphabet-starting-the-letter-L’ way of life? Are they trying to brainwash the children into socialism/communism/Marxism as the colleges have done? As a parent, I would want to know what they are teaching my children, and I would NOT sign anything that says I can’t observe what they are teaching. I would also start a petition to get the other parents not to sign, and to make the school district show us the curriculum as well as observe EVERY subject being taught. This is simply wrong.
What are they trying to hide? Seems if nothing bad is going on they would be open and above board. No parent has to sign any such paper it is not in the best interest of their kids seems to me.
The warning is to keep parents away finding out why America has moved down to 11th (or worse) Ranking in K-12 Education in the world, even though we Incinerate more dollars for K-12 education than any other nation.
https://all4ed.org/determining-where-the-u-s-ranks-in-education/
A great indication that educators don’t want parents to know what the teachers are elling their children. Government liberalism/socialism indoctrination schools.
They don’t want parents watching when Susan is whisked away for a secret abortion or when they ask Jack if he would rather be a Jackie and have the school help him through the operation. Things like that.
It is time to quit talking to the liberal dem bloodsucking parasitical ticks, if they try to get away with this start shooting
Sounds a lot like Communist China education style teaching.
To think that the school believes there is something the teacher should be privy to that a parent shouldn’t is astounding. Or is it? Nowadays, we all realize the reason behind this – they know they are doing wrong and are doing everything they can to hide it.
To think that the school believes there is something the teacher should be privy to that a parent shouldn’t is astounding. Or is it? Nowadays, we all realize the reason behind this – they know they are doing wrong and are doing everything they can to hide it.
They dont want you to know they are brainwashing them, as they have been since the millenial generation.
That was my first thought!
Absolutely bizarre. There shouldnt be a single parentin agreement with this. I hope all of them decide to home school.
I think we seriously need to rethink just who is teaching our kids.
Any parent should have every right to visit the classroom where their child is receiving instruction in a public or private school. There has been far too much indoctrination, and too mch cancel culture going on for far too many years.
I could certainly see there being issues during instruction on evolution.
Even if parents do become aware that their kids’ teachers are indoctrinating them… what can you do about it? If the kid doesn’t parrot back the proper words, the kid gets failing grades.
Homeschooling is taking off like gangbusters, and this is a primary reason why.
No student should be revealing confidential information in the classroom. Public school classrooms are public and it is a violation of the public trust for teachers to teach content while hiding it from parents.